I can hardly believe...

... that I've been here over four weeks!

Time has just flown by in a blur of weeding and, well basically more weeding! I've been trying to get the garden bit at the front as weed-free as possible in so that I can mulch it with pebbles - to suppress the weeds.

But no point putting the pebbles down until it is weed-free...

And fennel-seedling-free!! The fennel (unlike at home) has been the most promiscuous thug - both plants have surrounded themselves with numerous (deeply unwanted) offspring. So much so that I'm going to take out both plants as well as killing all the seedlings - I really can't face the results of them seeding another year.

This year I cut off all the flower heads as soon as the insects lost interest in them (before they could shed their seed). The green one was incredibly vigorous (again, compared to my one at home - one stem, about 18" high, one [or maybe two] flower head[s] - apparently the one in Brixton is not the norm!), but the bronze one was still overshadowing its neighbours.

Technically, I suppose, what I was doing for one of the weeks couldn't really be called "weeding"!

Weeding-too-late?

Lumberjacking?

Either way, I've been chopping down trees (about 3 dozen, I reckon, not including various shrubs). I felt terribly rugged; but also a bit scared - the [deceased] neighbour's shed (is that the word for something about 40' x 30'?) is right on the property boundary, awfully close to where my trees were coming down...

I was envisaging having to phone the notaire to try to contact the beneficiaries to apologise if the roof sustained "tree damage"; not something I relished, so I think that made me super careful.

Technically, again, I suppose "trees" might be too strong a word for it? They were maybe saplings? Anyway, they were mostly ash, 2½" to 4" in diameter and 20' to 25' tall (at a guess).

My theory is that when M. Lorin's wife died, and he lost interest in everything, he stopped spraying everywhere quite as thoroughly as usual. So these ash seedlings were allowed to grow for a year or two...

Then we bought the house, and didn't do anything about them for (nearly) three years. A couple of ivy-strangled rotten damsons as well.

Hence me getting out the "suspendies" and "high heels"!

Struggled on the "buttered scones" though...

Paris-Brest not quite the same!

Once all the trees were down (and the evidence "hidden" - I will try to post a photo, then you'll see what I mean!), I spent another week pulling out all the ivy between the bases of the trees, and down the banks.

["For the love of ivy" it was not!]

Still have to get rid of the stumps, tho'!